In a world where people still punt gnomes, I look to this video for guidance in how to stop the travesties. Gnomes are people, too. Thanks to John for the tip — this video brings a little light into the dark world of gnome abuse. While the video was meant to be funny and kind of absurd, it definitely exemplifies a valid legal argument. It’s awesome to see how WoW machinima can help teaching strategies; What has two thumbs but can’t heal? is a total win in that regard.

The next is the introduce the magic:

With a simple gesture of their hands, a wizard can summon forth magic from both nature and places of darker origins. Magic-Users weave magic the way an artist draws a portrait. Muttering a few words and pointing at their foes can hit enemies with the force of a thousand blows or rend the very existence of the planes asunder. Through magic, a person can gain respect, friendship, or money.

The key to being a Wizard, Shaman, or Farseer, (among other things) is of course, magic. Magic is the user’s last defense against the evil forces that threaten Azeroth. All other skills fall secondary to a true magic-user of Azeroth, no sacrifice is to great to enhance their magical talents. There are no universal magic’s within the land of Azeroth, various forms of magic are weaved from many sources. Shaman and Farseers derive their powers from the Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Nature itself. Mages and their kin however believe that magic is a tool, not a request. Mages summon magic from everything and nothing, many feel they act carelessly.

Though none truly know how magic originated in Azeroth, it is known that one of the demons’ goals was to suck magic from the land of Azeroth. Medivh and the Tirisfal were the only true masters of this force and used it to defeat the demons during the original invasion (set before the original Warcraft). The Mages and Sorcerers are ruled by a shadowy council of the most powerful mages in existence. Shaman and Farseers are commanded by the Orc leaders, and are often retained as advisors to those in high-positions.

And the end,the myth magic very take something interesting thing to anybody who have imagination,enjoy yourself and share it.

It could seem silly to celebrate the anniversary of a videogame, especially one that, if you’ve been playing since day one, you’ve spent over $800 and countless hours on. But then again, look at what this game has given back: groups and guilds full of friends (and some spouses), weeknights full of gear upgrades and XP gains, Saturday afternoons spent slaying dragons and Sunday evenings spent picking herbs in the Swamp of Sorrows or admiring the sunsets in Hinterlands. We’ve played this game for four years, and for most of us, it’s been worth every quest. Here’s to many, many more.

Alex Ziebart: My guild and the people in it are the memories that are will last the longest, long after WoW is gone. If I had to stick to gameplay though, my first time summoning Ragnaros was one of the most epic moments I’ve ever had in gaming. I’d never seen anything quite like it before, and neither had most of the people I was there with. We were in awe, got heartily owned, and didn’t even care. It was amazing, and while there have been plenty of cool moments in WoW since then, none match the first. Nostalgia does some crazy things to memories. Molten Core sucked but I kind of miss it sometimes.

Christian Belt: I came over to WoW after playing FFXI for awhile, and PSO before that. I remember thinking to myself, “what is this feeling I’m having…is it…fun?” Everything about the game was designed for enjoyment, and that was a new concept for me as far as MMOs went. I was hooked immediately, and never looked back. I spent most of my time playing with a couple of good real-world friends, which made the experience even better. The epic scale of the game was overwhelming. I wasn’t used to the vast freedom afforded my character. It seems trivial now, but I can still remember the thrill I felt the first time my little Mage saw a lake, then realized he could enter that lake, and then found that, holy crap, there was stuff under the water, and he could swim under there. And then he ran out of breath and died, but whatever.

Mike Schramm: I bought WoW as a birthday present for myself a few years ago, and since then it hasn’t stopped giving. It shocks me a little bit to think how much money and time I’ve put into this game, but then again, look what I’ve gotten out of it: friends, a job, endless hours of entertainment, accomplishments aplenty, and sharp insight into the way people work, both together and online. I remember that back when I first started, I had no idea how big the world was — I explored the Night Elf starting area on my first character, and was surprised when, at level 10, I left it to find an even bigger area: Teldrassil. At that time, I had yet to even know about places like Orgrimmar and Nagrand and Molten Core, and even new, only a zone or two into Northrend, I find myself surprised at how many things there are to find just around any given corner, from Icecrown to SMV to Booty Bay.

Allie Roberts: WoW was my first MMORPG and is still the only one I’ve ever played. I’m not a traditional gamer by any stretch of the imagination, and it hasn’t escaped my attention just how many people I’ve met playing who would probably never have set foot in an MMORPG if it hadn’t been for WoW. Years later it’s still possible to appreciate the risk that Blizzard took with a game that broke so many of the accepted rules concerning the genre — and equally possible to appreciate the enormity of the job in keeping the game fresh, relevant and balanced.

As for major moments and memories, I suppose I really have two that stand out.The first is the close-knit group of friends I gained while PuG-tanking; you can have so much fun in WoW without ever setting foot in a raid. The second is my first Al’ar kill. I was new to raid-tanking, Al’ar was my first big raid boss beside Void Reaver, and the guild I’d come to had struggled on him for nearly a month. People started screaming on vent in the last few seconds as his health dropped second by agonizing second and we knew we’d finally gotten him. Nothing will ever top the first raid boss who really put up a fight.
From www.wow.com.

Players will be seeing the arena points they had left after season 7 ended be reimbursed in the near (if not immediate) future. Yesterday players logged on after maintenance to discover their points had been wiped, and that season 8 had not yet begun. Arena points are only wiped at the beginning of a season, not before and not during the transition between seasons.

Crygil’s full statement on the reimbursement is as follows:

Arena points were wiped during the recent maintenance following the end of the arena season on January 19th. We initially intended to launch the next arena season this week, but it was delayed due to the minor content patch that needs to coincide with the beginning of the season having some last minute issues to resolve.

Due to the delay in the arena season we are in the process of reimbursing arena points to all eligible participants. Characters will be returned to the amount they had on Tuesday, January 26th. All arena points will then be wiped when season 8 begins. We apologize for the confusion this caused and appreciate your understanding

Rumors place season 8 beginning next week, although there has been no official announcement. Arena season 8 will begin with the release of patch 3.3.2 — of which we recently discovered translated Korean patch notes.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

On January 24th, 2008 at 9:27 p.m. central I was officially welcomed into the WoW Insider family. At 9:52 p.m. central that same evening Alex Ziebart was brought on board. Between the 25 minutes that I was on staff and Alex wasn’t, I had already leaked three Blizzard secrets, pissed off Blizzard PR four times, got an angry email from Ghostcrawler about calling warriors the redheaded step children of WoW, and was fired and rehired at least five separate times by Liz Harper.

Alex, my friend, you have a lot of catching up to do. Get crackin’ you whipper snapper!

In all seriousness, between my first post and this one, the two years I’ve spent writing here have been awesome. It’s a job that I never thought I’d have, and definitely one that I never thought I’d stay in this long. And out of all the columns I write, penning The Queue twice a week for you all is some of the most fun I have. So let’s get to it!

Justin asked…

“What’s Frostmourne doing in the armory?”

It was a demo item at BlizzCon a few years ago, which is why it’s named Frostmourne Art Demo. It’s not the real thing.

Outlier asked…

“Are mobs tougher to tank now in 3.3? They seem to be harder to position.”
There was a bug with positioning just as patch 3.3 came out, but that was hotfixed a couple days later. Everything should be fine now, and I haven’t noticed any troubles in my daily heroic tanking.

DarkSide asked…

“What’s the best tanking shield I can get from running heroics?”

You’ll want to get the Splintered Door of the Citadel from killing Marwyn in regular Halls of Reflection. Have fun farming it, it’s only got a 15% drop rate and never seems to come up for tanks that need it.

Mrs. Rossi lamented…

“Do you guys have That Guy in your guild who reads the guild apps and immediately turns everyone down?”

During the time I spent as an officer in a big high end raiding guild, we had several people who fit that bill exactly. I never really appreciated their input. Often times they’d pass up exceptional candidates because they’d misspell a complicated word, or forget to list that they cleared Kara even though they were five bosses into Sunwell. Those silly things never do anyone any good. And they never got a chance to even comment on the applications that were just down right bad — like the rogue in all greens claiming he can do 2000 dps.

One got so bad that I had to talk with him about it, and gently ask him not to post on applications for a bit. He didn’t take it too well, but the rest of the guild was getting pretty angry about it. Eventually he gquit and left the game, but it was pretty obvious from the get go he wasn’t happy with it anymore.

The moral of the story here, if there is one, is that people in general need to have a level head and be calm when reading over guild applications. Hot heads and quick decisions never do anyone any good.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW’s newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to’s, visit WoW.com’s WoW Rookie Guide.

We’re taking out the mop and bucket at the WoW Rookie Guide this week, scrubbing down outdated articles and polishing up pieces that cover recently updated features. We think you’ll like the new section we’re creating within the guide specifically for brand new level 80s. By no stretch of the imagination will WoW Rookie end up expanding to the point of becoming a virtual WoW 101 … But we will keep a corner devoted to players who’ve just hit 80 for the first time.

So while we’re madly cooking and cleaning behind the scenes this week, we’ve rounded up a few new and old favorites for you to poke through. Or hop on over to the WoW Rookie Guide itself for even more — but if you should spy a pink-haired gnome in a maid’s outfit or (heaven forbid!) encounter an undead harridan wielding a rolling pin, please keep in mind that housekeeping is still in progress.

	Elemental Shaman 101 If you’re intrigued by the idea of playing a shaman with an elemental talent spec, you’ll want to get a good grasp of how it all works before you dive in. This article gives you everything you need to know to get started in one of the game’s simplest specs, from mechanics to gearing to rotation.
	A death knight five-man tanking primer If you’re a five-man DK tank newbie looking to up their game, this column’s for you.
	Keeping your account safe and sound You really don’t have to change your entire computer system simply to keep your WoW account safe. WoW Rookie rounds up a selection of WoW.com posts that show you how (and why) to keep your WoW account from being hacked and prevent your computer from spilling its beans to the world at large.
	Banking on a banker character Got stuff? You need a banker. Creating a dedicated character to do nothing but hang out in town, store goods and handle your finances may sound redundant at first. But time is money, friend — and a banker can save you both.
	How to slot your gear with gems Sockets allow you to truly customize your gear to either augment your strengths or brace up your weaknesses (or both). Whether you just want to get down the road with a decent set of gear or you enjoy endlessly tweaking your armor’s performance, we’ll help you fill your first sockets and make your character stronger than ever.
	Level 80 — now what? If you’ve just hit level 80, consider this basic checklist a graduation gift of sorts from WoW Rookie. It’ll help pointed you in the right direction for whatever type of game play you’re interested in pursuing. Your game’s just beginning. Dig in!
	The fresh 80’s guide to getting started in five-mans If you’re so new to level 80 (or still working your way there) that you’re not sure what to tackle and where to turn first, read Level 80: Now what?. Once you’ve got a handle on the available options, it’s time to tackle the wide world of Wrath’s five-man instances.

The WoW Insider Show returns to the airwaves today at 3:30 PM Eastern time, bringing with it familiar faces Michael Sacco and Matthew Rossi (your host and co-host, respectively), with special guests Tim “Heartbourne” Tusing and Jimmy “DJTyrant” Blocksom of Project Lore bringing their unique perspectives to this week’s top stories, both here and around the internet.

And, of course, they’ll answer your emails and talk live with the folks in the chat channel. You can email the podcast any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you’ll be able to listen in to the show on the feed on our Ustream site, or after the jump.

Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn’t our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn’t work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that’s a threat, after all, we don’t have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we’d win.

The problem with writing these year end posts for WoW is the tendency for Blizzard to make huge changes at the end of the year, altering everything. Whether it’s a new expansion like Wrath of the Lich King or Patch 3.3, it’s hard to remember what the game was like the previous 3/4 of the year. It’s not that we didn’t have a good time before the big year end events, but the game becomes so different, what we did before is irrelevant.

This year, hopefully by or during the summer, we’ll be getting another expansion — only this will literally change everything. It’s like we’ll be getting WoW II, only without having to give up our stuff/contacts/accounts and start fresh in a new game. So let’s take a look backward and forward at some of the main aspects of the game as it affects those of us with limited playtime, like we were the two-faced god this month is named after.

Instances

2009: Before Wrath of the Lich King, the time it took to find a group and then complete an instance was too much for people with busy schedules. But the expansion brought shorter instances that could be completed so quickly that finding a group was the real time consuming part. Sure, Wrath came in 2008, but it was late enough in the year that many of us weren’t able to fully take advantage of many of its goodies until 2009. And then, at the end of 2009 came the Dungeon Finder Tool and cross-server PUGging. Wow. Groups are now instantaneous if you’re a healer or tank and a reasonable wait otherwise. Also, you can be questing or doing dailies while you are in queue without having to worry about getting to the instance. Just a click of your mouse and you are transported, hopefully with enough food, drink and reagents to get you through. Hint hint.

2010: The Dungeon Finder Tool will continue to be awesome, particularly as we all iron out some of the more drama-laden issues. In Cataclysm, we’ll get revamped and heroic old school instances along with some new ones. I love that we low-playtime-players will be able to experience the new dungeons along with everyone else because of the random cross-realm grouping.

Wishful Thinking: I’d like to see Blizzard harness the new features of Battle.net in a way so that it allows for cross realm grouping beyond battlegroups. This way, we could do instances/battlegrounds with friends on servers all over a region, as long as they are the same faction.

Leveling

2009: Many of us with shorter playsessions enjoy leveling different characters, sometimes to the point of becoming altoholics. We saw two new opportunities for leveling our characters last year. PvP leveling is now possible — though not extremely efficient until you hit Alterac Valley levels. And now that grouping is more easily fit into our schedules, instance leveling is blindingly fast.

2010: Total change of zones. New races and class/race combos. Leveling will be brand new and everyone will be doing it.

Wishful Thinking: I’d love to see a mentoring system such as the sidekick one in City of Heroes. I know that Recruit A Friend is supposed to substitute for that, but I’d like to actually group with newer characters of friends and family and work on objectives together even though our characters are many levels apart.

Gear

2009: Northrend did not bring the ridiculous upgrades that Outland did. There was no replacing of purples with greens in the first couple levels of questing, like we were used to in the previous expansion. However, the options for blue and better gear were expanded last year in many ways. Faster instances meant dungeon drops were more available to us. Speedy faction questing allowed us to purchase nice leveling and intro to end-game goodies. PvP gear continued to be easily accessible and also expanded to more options. And of course, the Dungeon Finder tool with the random benefits for completing the instances completely upped the ante through all levels. Though I completely disagree with the Gearscore elitists, I do think there is no reason for a player to enter an 80 dungeon with a single green piece of armor and/or without basic enchants and gems. Lack of playtime has not been an excuse for at least a year with all these options.

2010: Rated Battlegrounds will allow PvPers who don’t like Arena to earn the highest level of PvP gear. We can also assume that Blizzard will continue to make all but the best PvE gear available to those of us who don’t have time to keep up with raid progression.

Wishful Thinking: Blizzard should raise the requirements for admittance in heroics so that lesser geared/skilled players are forced to gear up before entering them. I really think that will reduce a lot of the drama going on in the random heroics.

Character Customization

2009: The class changes over the course of the year have allowed many different talent combinations to be viable in solo, PvP and PvE play. The Endgame Elitists certainly still have favorite specs, but they are not so cookie cutter as they used to be. There are also a lot more gear choices available that may not be best in slot, but are still uber enough to be useful in most situations.

2010: Cataclysm brings us Paths of the Titans and new class/race combos to give us more customization to our characters.

Wishful Thinking: Let me color my armor! I want my goblin mage’s signature color to be hot pink and all of her leet gear be colored accordingly. Why can’t I? Why?

World of Warcraft keeps getting more enjoyable, which is why I’m still playing it years after swearing I wouldn’t even try another fantasy MMO after EQ. I had more fun playing last year than I did the previous years and expect to enjoy myself even more in 2010. Of course, I plan to be completely unfaithful with Diablo III when that comes out, but that will probably only last a month or two. And then I’m sure to be back to Azeroth with flowers, chocolates and promises I don’t intend to keep.

From Ghostcrawler:

As many of you have suspected, we think rogue damage is too high. We will be making hotfixes to lower the maximum damage output of Assassination and Combat rogues. The Combat nerf will be slight. Both specs should still do just fine on damage meters (assuming skill, gear etc.) but shouldn’t be beating out other specs to such a large degree.

Other things on our radar that you might see soon — none of these are promises and we have no specific changes to announce yet:

• Warlock damage in PvE is a little low.
• Protection warriors have too much utility and damage for PvP. (We don’t want to hurt their tanking in PvE of course.)
• We are considering adjusting (not replacing) the Elemental 4 piece Tier 10 set bonus.
• We’ll continue to refine and look at the Icecrown weapon procs.
• Other stuff (yes, we’ve heard your concerns), but these are the big things we are focusing on at this time.

Some of these changes, should we decide to pursue them, can be handled via hotfix and others will be made in an upcoming patch.

We usually don’t make such general announcements before we’re ready to share the specifics, so we’ll see how this works out.

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. “Don’t tell anyone this but Niby is daft.” ~ Impsy <Niby’s Minion>

This week, Blood Pact looks at the bad-boys of our demon companions. When you think through the various warlock minions it’s common to consider their usefulness. This is especially true of non-warlocks and raid leaders. Everyone knows that imp for his ranged DPS, health bonus and constant grumbling, the felhunter for annoying casters, voidwalker for tanking, felguard for pure DPS and the succubus for, well, dying a lot in Black Temple. This week though we look at two minions that are best known for killing people and causing trouble in towns and villages: the infernal and the doomguard.

Anyone who has been playing the game for some time probably remembers at least one occasion where a bored warlock has decided that they have nothing better to do than annoy low-level members of their own faction by setting one of these guys loose. If not then you’ve almost certainly heard stories. It’s these stories that, even though this chaos is no longer possible, make others look at locks with much suspicion and locks sigh for the old days.

Infernal

A favorite from the Warcraft RTS games, this guy is partly responsible for many players selecting their first warlock. He appeared on the original WoW cinematic looking all ‘ard and then climbing a tower to eat a mage. Those who quest in Desolace in their 30s encounter them in a pleasantly demonic zone. We also find them causing much disruption when we first arrive in Shadowmoon Valley. Strangely though, many locks don’t bother to do the quest to summon their own. I expect this is related to their general lack of utility, but it probably also has something to do with being available at the same time as the felguard talent.

Level 50 is a busy time for warlocks; you have your mind on changing talent build to get the felguard (as recommended by typical leveling guides), you have your Sunken Temple quest to think about (always worth doing at 50) and you have the infernal to learn to summon. Luckily for us the troll and infernal quests come from the same awesome little imp. Impsy can be found stood beside his less interesting ‘master’ (Niby the Almighty) in Felwood, just North of the Bloodvenom Falls. In case you were wondering, yes, Niby does make a return in Icecrown Citadel, where he will sell you your tier 10 gear.

The Infernal quest line starts with Niby but all he does is tell you to talk to his imp. Impsy will in turn send you off to gather three items that drop from demons in Felwood, Azshara and The Blasted Lands. He’ll turn these into a Fel Fire with which you can reignite Kroshius, then you nip off to resurrect and subsequently kill Kroshius. This shouldn’t be too tricky as he’s no longer an elite, he used to be pretty hard to solo or would require a group to kill. Bring back his core, watch a funny skit involving a chicken and receive an off-hand item and the ability to cast Inferno. You can actually learn the spell from a book that drops in Blackrock Spire but the drop rate isn’t great and why would you want to avoid visiting Impsy?

Inferno is one of the few warlock spells that require a reagent (other than a soul shard) so make sure you keep a few of these if you want to cast it. Summoning the infernal is different to your normal minions, rather than casting a long spell you aim a reticule on the ground at which point a meteor will fall from the sky, stun those around and from the crater will rise your infernal. He’s a pretty unsubtle fellow who has no special abilities to use and simply clomps up to things and hits them hard. He does have a passive immolation aura and complete immunity to fire spells which can be quite nice in the right situation (should you find yourself surrounded by lots of little guys casting fire spells for example).

After one minute your infernal will simply crumble to rubble. Historically he was only enslaved and so when his time came he would break free and attack you or anyone else that annoyed him; this is where he got his bad name.

Doomguard

There is actually two ways to summon a Doomguard. One is to kill something with Curse of Doom, though it has to be something you would get experience for. The easiest things to do this on are elementals and demons as you can cast CoD then Banish them, followed by a rank one Banish; that should keep them busy until the CoD pops. A Doomguard summoned in this way is free and will attack you so make sure you are ready to Enslave it.

The other way to summon a Doomguard is through the Ritual of Doom. This also needs a reagent as well as four other people to click the portal. In days gone by the ritual would kill one of the people performing it (no durability loss) but for some reason this was seen to be a bad thing. Now one person only loses some health, so no fun there. Once summoned in this way he is automatically enslaved for 15 minutes with no chance of breaking free. After that time he just despawns.

The doomguard is a pretty powerful demon and as such has been used a fair bit by affliction locks. The reason only afflocks have used him is simply because until recently (patch 3.3) they don’t get any real benefit from their minion. Demonology locks will lose way too much DPS without their felguard and the same is true of destruction and their imps. Now that felpuppies buff affliction locks nicely the Doomguard has no place in raids once again.

The ritual of Doom spell can also be learned from a book but the drop rate is still not too good, I would recommend the quest chain that will also teach it. You need to go and see Daio the Decrepit in the North of the Tainted Scar (SW Blasted Lands), and pick up the quests The Prison’s Casing and The Prison’s Bindings. The first will require killing mobs in the southern part of Winterspring; this will be easy at 80 but at 60 (when the quest is available) I strongly recommend you take a friend or two. The second quest requires a trip to Dire Maul, again, at 80 this is easy enough but at 60 you will want a group. The easiest (quickest) way to the mobs you need in DiM is through the back door in the pavilion with the sad elf. Once you have done these quests you can do Suppression which again is a group thing at 60. These quests are steeped in warlock-juice and so great fun to do.

The doomguard himself has three abilities: War Stomp, Cripple and Rain of Fire. They’re all pretty useful though he doesn’t like using them much himself so you might need to command him to use them when appropriate. He also hits pretty hard and has a massive health and mana pool. He sounds really useful but frankly, with the effort required to summon him, the massive cooldown between uses and the fact that you can’t have any other (more useful) minion while he is out makes him a novelty demon.

Both these guys are, to my mind, in dire need of a revamp for Cataclysm. It seems to me that they were introduced more from a role-play “wouldn’t this be cool” angle than from any serious attempt to add something to the warlock class they would use. The Doomguard utility in early Wrath raiding was more a failure of any other minion to be worth using rather than any great strength of its own and the cooldown meant that you could only use him some of the time. The big problem they suffer from is not benefiting from any of the lock talents. In this respect they behave more like guardians than minions. This isn’t a terrible thing in its own right but if they aren’t going to behave like our minions then I don’t think they should replace them.

I would like to see these guys used more like the shaman fire elementals. Those moments when you just want to get out a bit more burst, maybe you’re looking at a 1% wipe or a group of adds has just broken loose (many whelps…). Your minion should still be doing their thing but for a short while you call in the big guns. Not something to use every fight, that would become a boring ‘rotation’ thing, but just a little something extra now and then. Failing that, you should certainly have your minion returned to you when they despawn and not have to resummon them again. That way the infernal and doomguard could be used mid-fight.

As I’ve said before, I would love to see warlock minions become more diversely used; a minion for a job, not for a talent build. We have learned to reach through into the nether and pull forth diverse demons to do our bidding, demons that are specialists in different situations; it’s such a shame to only use one for every job.